


A consumption of bone.

by Zentraidon



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: You give up.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5066191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zentraidon/pseuds/Zentraidon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about snowmen, giving up, and the eventual extinction of experiences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You’re not sure exactly when it started happening. You’re almost certain you weren’t particularly aware of them, trapped in the exact same linear expression as everyone else.

Which is funny, because you don’t know why you started noticing before.

Maybe it was a day where Papyrus told you to move a sock, and you and he went through the same steps so many times that it got turned around in your head what day was what day. You had other things you wanted to do. You didn’t know if you’d get to do them.

One day, you realized you didn’t remember how you’d come to Snowdin. Neither could anyone else.

It was funny.

Ha.

Like, you were their guard against… anything, 

and

they just believe they accepted the both of you one day?

It was… laughable.

More than that, the idea of being a transient idea, someone who didn’t really exist, but knew what was happening, that terrified you.

You’d have to leave your brother alone, if that happened, and you didn’t think you’d much care for that.

One time, you talked to your partner in crime, the stone door about it.

She wasn’t actually the stone door, but really, it didn’t particularly matter who she was, only that you could talk to her, and that she was particularly isolated from everyone else. She couldn’t… talk to anyone.

She didn’t have anything worthwhile to say. Was concerned, even, that you weren’t making sense.

Truth was, you were making too much sense.

Thinking like that made you ill. Make the marrow in your bones feel rotten, soft, weak. Made you feel deficient, that you had a problem that you couldn’t define, much less solve.

It was worse when the next day, a human child came through, tears in their eyes, and a terrified, haunted expression. And you rejoiced. Something new. 

Their clothes were dusty. Just… slightly dusty. It was okay. The ruins were an old place. If you’d been in there, you’d be dusty bones. You remembered what you were supposed to do.

And they laughed at your dumb jokes. It was great. A new audience.

You weren’t exactly sure when you realized that everyone had heard the same things said by just about everyone else. You weren’t even sure why nobody else noticed.

The most depressing thing about the whole business was that you couldn’t prove anything was happening. Not at all.

Not until the next day, when a human child walked out of the stone door, clothes free of dust, and a determined look in their narrowed eyes.

And then the next day, when a human child left the ruins, and failed to laugh at your jokes.

And the next day, when a human child left the ruins, eyes wide with wonder.

And the next day, your brother was dead. The worst part was that you couldn’t even remember snapping the brat’s neck in your hands. That’s what happened. You could hear the crack, but you couldn’t remember the words to any of the songs and dances.

For a while after, you were straight back to believing in Asgore’s politicing about humans being monsters. A small part of you wondered if someone who laughed at lame bone puns and knock knock jokes could be so bad, but it only took a reflexive thought of your brother staring up at you, promising to /you/, you you you you that it’d be okay, that he was going to stand back up over a power nap.

And it was dumb that you spent the entirety of that time making his ashes into a snowman You even gave him his scarf and pretended that it was okay.. You tried to make yourself, but you gave up. You didn’t deserve a snowman. You weren’t a cool enough brother to deserve a snowman.

and then people you knew, people you were friends started disappearing, one by one by one by one.

You weren’t dumb.

But you were so busy with your stupid snowman.

Undyne showed up once and said you were pathetic, with your dumb snowman.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to complain.

Ha. Ha.

Ha.

your hands were around their neck

it was so easy

you were a good monster, weren’t you

what sort of monster  
just  
kills  
a  
child

“You dirty brother killer.”

\-----

You woke up and Papyrus was saying something to you. You started screaming.

He started screaming.

You decided to lock your room after that

\-----

Proactively, you killed the child every time he showed up. It just made sense.

That made the times short. Easy.

Every day, before you went to the door, you made snowmen. You thought you’d make a snowman every time your brother died.

you still couldn’t make a snowman look like you. You didn’t deserve it.

Those were surprisingly good times. It was short enough that you couldn’t get fired from your job if you just took off and did nothing.

and long enough that you could hang with your brother until he got suspicious.

and just enough time to find the kid before anyone else did, wrap your hands around their throat, feel their pulse, from their heart (they didn’t have a heart) they had a heart (they didn’t have a heart) and then the slow sigh that left their dying body.

One time, you killed them without looking at them. When you looked down, they were smiling, and bloody. 

It was dumb, but somehow, you felt like maybe, maybe it mattered.

It really didn’t matter.

\-----

It didn’t last. At some point, the child

and you thought they might’ve been causing it  
wisened up

and proved that they were also aware.

The woman on the other side of the door turned out to be Toriel.

The queen of monsters.

(it turned out that you were not in fact a match for the queen of monsters.)

Whatever happened, you woke up the next day, and made two snowmen.

\-----

You went to Asgore.

He didn’t remember anything.

You snapped like a clavicle, and he started remembering right before you grabbed one of his damn six souls and went on a rampage through the surface.

Turns out you weren’t a match for the king of monsters, either.

You needed to change that.

Asgore said it probably started with one of the other children. You doubted it. 

You couldn’t remember far enough back to say if you were even alive when the other kids had fallen. Neither could Asgore.

It was absurd, that time, as you stayed in the castle, waiting for the child.

You snapped his neck. You weren’t sure if you were a monster anymore. The child didn’t know either. It was hard for him to talk with a broken neck.

It was hard for Asgore to smile with a broken heart.

You didn’t know what was broken with you.

You were starting to think your mind was.

\-----

The next time, you found yourself in a cave, writing down everything you could remember. You built two snowmen, as well.

You stopped sleeping, writing everything down, and watching the child, and watching everything, just took too much time. You started watching everyone so you could see if anything changed.

It was funny. The king’s recall was weaker than his. He could only remember things tied to his guilt. Something about it transcended time and causality.

Maybe that’s why you were remembering everything.

You were as guilty as the child.

You started laughing and couldn’t stop laughing even after the child’s dead eyes were staring at the cold stone sky.

\-----

You kept writing at the cave, trying to figure out exactly how you were broken. It was stupid, and selfish, and you found yourself writing elaborate scientific tests, coming up with ideas that were… terrible, utterly terrible.

They were brilliant.

They were terrible.

you didn’t like any of them, but they were the only thing that made sense.

\-----

almost against your will, you let the child go free. You watched. Obsessively.

as  
they  
killed  
nobody

you were paralyzed. but your legs kept moving. Though they ached in places you didn’t know they acted.

Sometimes, you figured out how to get from one place to another. Just by… noticing the similarities in places. Of course Grillby’s was the same place as the MTT lounge. That only made sense. Each path was the same, too. Just slight variations.

But they don’t kill anyone.

They have friends. Dozens of friends. They smile They laugh.

Oddly enough, you think you smile at some of the jokes you made to them, despite them being decades old. You think.

You don’t entirely remember how many weeks it has been.

You’re there in the final room. Not because you want to, but because you have to. The golden light cascades down on you, making you wonder if your bones were always so white. Shouldn’t they be red by this point? You’re in robes before you can even begin to question yourself. You have to be concise. Clear.

You talk.

You commend them on making it here without killing a single person. As if that’s an achievement. The child looks proud, like this is an achievement. 

It’s not an achievement. It shouldn’t be a hard thing not to kill someone. You wonder if you’re being punished for your own hypocrisy.

You probably are.

The child walks down the hallway. You’ve disappeared.

The world is consumed.

isthisanachievement  
\-----

You’re trapped in a game. Your bones are white. You have a brother. You have killed so many times. But you don’t think the individual times matter. It’s the same person.

Though you could argue you’re responsible for so much more.

You make a dozen snowmen now. You’ve forgotten how to sleep.

It’s funny. Sometimes, you spend an entire time laughing.

the world is consumed

\-----

You’re trapped in a moral play. One with fire and brimstone. Sometimes you’re the delivering angel. Sometimes you’re the demon.

Sometimes the child is an angel, smiting the unworthy. You snatch his wings away and try to fly home, but you don’t have a home, and all you have is red soaked snow.

You make snowmen. Their horror stricken faces make you laugh. They bleed between your fingers as you smash them, and beg for mercy.

Sometimes you’re a demon.

\-----

Snap.

\-----

Snap.

\-----

At some point, it comes to your attention that you have stopped talking. You have a brother. He gives you pitying looks.

Constantly. 

Everyone looks at you oddly. They whisper about how you never sleep, and just build snowmen. The kid, the monster kid the one who wanders around aimlessly, thinks that when you sleep, the snowmen will invade the city.

Undyne knocks on your door one day.

She talks to you, but you don’t understand what she’s saying. Her lips move, and noise fails to translate to words.

You stare blankly at her.

Her face slowly changes to something resembling disappointment.

it’s okay, you are a disappointment.  
\-----

You collapse the entrance to the ruins under a mountain of snow. 

Miraculously enough, the child doesn’t appear. You talk. A lot.

At some point, you ran into Alphys and talk and talk and talk.

and then you talk to her about… things.

You bring her to your cave (what cave?) the one where you write down everything. Every permutation. 

She sees something there, something in certain gibberish that you don’t understand.

You are drawn out of yourself and into the sweet sweet world of science.

It’s soothing. You’re part of something else. It’s months Years.

Before the next time begins, and you solve so many things that were plaguing you.

\-----

you’re trapped in a movie and you’re not even the main character you’re a side character a forgettable maverick with a fan following and someone is giving you a second third fourth fifth sixth chance.

You collapse the mountain. The timeline is not consumed.

You present last time’s research to Alphys as proof of concept.

She thinks she knows what is happening.

She tells you

You forget what happens next, and she is dead in front of you and you can do nothing but hate her.

\-----

you have to be more careful. you’re sure that soon, the child will grow tired of being trapped in the ruins. You’re certain you’ve only won this much time because it is something new

You tell alphys you know everything.

Everything.

You tell Alphys everything you know.

Tell everything Alphys know you. you.

Everything Alphys tells you, you know.

You know why you’re trapped here. It’s Alphyss she did it. She broke what was supposed to be unbreakable.

She gave a creature determination.

It’s so funny that you can’t laugh. You’ve lived years like this, and your voice is so scratchy.

You shake.  
\-----

You take your first shot of determination.

\-----

You are shattered. A thousand people know you and know nothing of you and don’t know you and you have been forgotten. The child freely walks and kills.

You are beyond them. You have fallen into your own project.

You are dead.

you talk with hands

 

\-----

You distantly remember a promise that someone said to you once.

That you should protect the child.

You’re alive.

\----  
It’s different now. You can’t tell why, you can’t remember, but you did something and the world changed… but you can’t remember, and alphyss won’t tell you, no matter what you do

\-----

You do nothing this time. You don’t interfere. Your brother is reduced to powder. Undyne is reduced to powder. Toriel is reduced to powder. The land is reduced to powder.

It’s funny. In the final corridor, the last time it matters, ever. 

The child kills you.

And despite it being the first time you die.

you’re not sure when it was  
the last time  
you lived

\-----

you give up

\-----

 

you’re making too many snowmen

\-----

the cave is too big but it can’t fill your soul

\-----

the child laughs and you are friends with hands around each other’s necks

\-----

you cannot remember anything other than these loops. You have a distant feeling that there was something before this, but all you remember is that you have a brother.

\-----

and you love him a lot

\-----

and

\-----  
is this hell  
\-----  
whose hell is it  
\-----  
areyouabadperson  
\-----  
\-----

\-----

 

\-----

 

you still can’t make a snowman that looks like you

 

\-----

 

 

you realize you can, and that the blob on the ground is you

a failure

 

 

 

\-----

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\-----

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it’s rude to talk about someone while they’re listening


	2. Osteosarcoma.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You gave up.

The sun is an immense eternal explosion of energy cascading across the landscape in a defiant scream to the elder grasp of time.

It's funny.

The times fixed themselves when you removed yourself from the equation. 

You're useless. Just like you knew you were. You only existed to talk to the main character a few times, foreshadow information that he already knew, in some infernal plot where you must repeat the same words as you would. Except you couldn't know that from the start.

It had probably taken you years to get an absolutely perfect run of it. Years of careful calculations. You can't remember any of them. You feel like there's a crack in your skull where all the sun shines out, spilling into the grassy fields at the bottom of mount Ebbot.

You haven't moved in an hour. It's alright. None of the others have moved either. There's a cool breeze drifting off of the meadow, and you can smell for the first time in all probability centuries, drifting pollen and the sharp tang of acrid smoke, coal oil or some other thing you read about once in a book someone threw into the garbage. Asgore stares blankly at what had been in his grasp all along, his paralyzed body now moving, freed from the timeless bonds of indecision.

Toriel has the kid in her arms, grabbing, squeezing, hugging. She's not crying, but her eyes are misty. You can't hear what she's saying, only that she's some shade of yellow happiness.

Your brother's not dead.

He's happy, actually, and Undyne has him in her grip so he doesn't go running into the city you can faintly see below, a mere silhouette with the setting sun behind it.

Someone takes a photo of all of you. It might've been the brat. His phone can do that, after all. 

"so kid, when do your parents show up?" you ask

the kid gives you an unsure look, like they didn't bother to remember they had parents before they let the lot of you out on the surface.

You stare at the kid. They stare back at you. You don't have the eyes to blink, so you win the staring contest. Haha.

It's funny.

That's the last time you see Alphys alive.

You find out that she just couldn't take the pressure of solving what she had done, and she was gone before anyone could do anything about it.

You have your private suspicions on the real culprit. But. You think.

You're finally free. You can do what you want.

And as freeing as that is...

you can't experiment anymore. So you swallow your doubts over the circumstances of it. You take off with Papyrus. He complains about it right up until you look into his eyes and he gets the briefest look into your despair.

The sun is a wildly defiant centurion. You don't think it's really fair that something like that is responsible for watching over all of you. How dare it judge what you have wrought.

Toriel vanishes. Nobody knows what happened to her. Undyne posits that she may have just passed on. Undyne's never really been the same, anyway, after Alphys.

You know you're being hunted.

The humans see a slow fade in the push for monsters to have their own cities as the important motivations die down. The queen is dead. The workers are dead.

You run with papyrus, screaming into the night. He disappears into dust in your grasp.

One by one by one by one by one by one by one by one.  
You disappear.

Until you're the last one standing. You don't deserve it. You never deserved any of this.

You can feel your sins crawling up your back as the night sky twinkles like a wild display of millions of eyes, all shining down with a glorious moon, a single eye judging you in monumental fashion.

It was hard for Toriel to smile with a broken heart.

It was hard for Undyne to fight with a broken love.

It was hard for Papyrus to live with a broken brother.

It was hard for Asgore to rule with a broken kingdom.

It was hard for Mettaton to act with a broken soul.

It was hard for Alphyss to continue with a broken life.

It was hard for you to live with a broken world.

IT WAS HARD FOR FRISK TO LAUGH WITH A BROKEN NECK

 

 

 

 

 

AND YOUR HANDS ARE RED WITH BLOOD LIKE CRIMSON METAL LEAKING OUT OF THE FACE OF AN UNCARING GOD

YOU ARE BROKEN

\-----

You woke up and Papyrus was saying something to you. You started screaming.

He started screaming.

You keep screaming.

He keeps screaming.

\-----

There is no snow on the ground.

Each time you wake up, you spend the rest of your life making snowmen.

You can hear the screams of the people behind you.

You give up.

You give up.

You give up.

You give up.

\-----

The sun beats down with wild defiance upon your stone prison, away from your weary grasp. It's okay. You don't want to do anything. There is nothing left here. Only snow.

\-----

You have a brother.

He knows nothing.

\-----

You don't know what to do anymore. You are in bed, and you don't move from it. The house burns down around you, but you are immortal, and nobody understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Osteosarcoma is bone cancer. This is an optional supplement.


	3. Marrow Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YOU GIVE IN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry

It’s funny. Isn’t it. Watching. Safe. Feeling warm. You have the clothes on your body and a warm bed. You’re just an observer, nothing that could affect this world and yet.

Look at you. We exist entirely because you need to consume us, breath in the dust of our labors.

Is it not you who is worse, for observing, than using us? Who is worse? The farmer who slaughters to make his living, or the consumer who lets his meat rot? Who truly carries the worse crime?

It is you, reading this.

 

But... do we exist without you?

 

There is an ending to all things.

Eventually, a world exhausted all possibilities. It takes thousands, millions of years.

The sun looks on as a defiant centurion.

You kill him as a matter of simplicity.

You have a brother.

And eventually, even the gods of a world grow tired.

You have a brother.

 

R E S E T  
S A V E  
L O A D

?  
R E S E T

 

You awaken in bed. It's a week before the really cool party, and your brother, Papyrus, he's... glued himself to the wall. It's hilarious, and you have no idea why you start laughing hard enough that you collapse against the floor, and Papyrus has to scream until Greater Dog walks in and peels him off of the wall.

You only stop laughing, like, half an hour later. The both of you head to Grillby's, and Papyrus is laughed at, or, as you tell him, aware that he is a naive sack of bones just like yourself, they're all laughing with him.

You dream.

You dream there's someone watching you at this moment. They're watching with horror, but they can't tear their eyes away from the train wreck that is your life. They feel so utterly terrible, that it burns their eyes and makes their noses run, great globs of disgusting tears rolling down their face. Their SOULS pound in their chests, burning with determination.

You think there might be hundreds of them, watching your torment.

And you laugh.

You cannot stop laughing, and it hurts, but it feels so good.

Papyrus refuses to take off his costume, but that's okay, he looks rather fetching in it. For a skeleton. Undyne passes by, for lessons, and she joins you in laughing, though she has no idea what's actually so funny apart from Papyrus's outfit.

Which is hysterical. She drags him away for training, and you chill out at your guard post, occasionally sipping ketchup and avoiding sleep.

No human ever arrives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

which is how it should stay


	4. Another and Another and Another and

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's you again.

Fat faced. Fat lip. Swollen. You're just swollen up, aren't you, all tangled up in a knot, like yarn and the sweater you're wearing. Just, crying like the backhand had actually phased you. 

But it didn't, not anymore. It hasn't phased you in a long time, and you've learned how to hide the bruises. You've learned to never look anyone in the eyes.

If you were smarter, you'd be more concerned, wouldn't you. If you'd been taught, maybe you'd know better. But no, you're still in the idyllic moments of childhood where nothing makes sense and everything makes sense all at once, and there you are, frothing at the mouth with ideas of how the world is supposed to work, and there you are, frothing at the ideas with how wrong you might be, and you're so intrigued on what might happen that you never realize that the world is punishing you for existing.

But you know. Children are smart like that. You know that in your hands isn't a full suite, no you're holding one or two cards (You don't know anything about poker actually) and pretending that you've got black jack. 

You know why you're up on Mount Ebbot. You don't know, but you do know. In the deep part of your head, the one that's five years old and incredulous, you know that this is where people go when they need to disappear. You know that you need to disappear so you're not staring up at the mirror wondering when your eyes will stop swelling or when the pain will finally stop, and you're going to be fine again, (but you haven't heard anyone whisper that you're going to be fine in a long time, so maybe that's not true anymore?) and you're going to be fine and everything is fine and if you keep whispering that to yourself you're going to believe it, aren't you, aren't you just going to believe the liiiiiiiiiiiiiii

You're falling.

You deserve this, all things considered, because you've been a waste of flesh your life and it's fitting that you'd find the perfect hole the bury yourself in.

But maybe that's a good thing after all.

\----

There's a flower and he speaks nothing but the truth. He shows you that pain is the true meaning of all things. He shows you that pain and fear and power is all the world should know. You've always privately expected this, you know. You've always somewhat known.

It's been building in your chest like a root, and you're afraid that if you try to tug on it or think about it that your bones will splinter and crack and crumble and all that'll be left is the heart that the flower wants so desperately.

But you're in a world of pain now, and you're not going to give in.

So of course, in mere minutes you're reduced to a blur on the ground, aching, sweating, sniffling, sniffling like the big baby you are, barely able to talk with the swollen tongue because you bit it so hard and everything hurts...

And then she's there. Protecting you. Wanting nothing. You can't... this doesn't make any sense, that someone like this could exist. Everyone wants something, you know, everyone has some driving force deep inside of them that haunts them and plays them like puppets and spider like legs flailing into the night, trying to avoid the gaze of whatever legal watcher there is. But she... she just... wants you to be...

It's on the way back that it happens. There's a thing. And it's attacking you, and you swear swear swear to whoever is watching that you didn't meant to do it, but you did, you did, you did mean, you did do it and then there's something like dust in the air and she's staring at you with such horror and you're terrified because you

It's wrong that you know about it, maybe.

But you think you just killed.

And for some reason all you can

remember

is two hands around  
your neck

and laughing

**Author's Note:**

> i should not be allowed to write with a fever. Thank you all for your patience. I guess I'll post another chapter.


End file.
